He Developed A System For Predicting Planetary Positions That Remained In Use For Some 1,500 Years.

Astronomy Chapter 3

When did Copernicus live?

about 500 years ago

He discovered what we now call Newton’s first law of motion.

Galileo

He discovered that the orbits of planets are ellipses.

Kepler

He was the first to prove that comets lie beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Tycho Brahe

He developed a system for predicting planetary positions that remained in use for some 1,500 years.

Ptolemy

The controversial book of this famous person, published in 1543 (the year of his death), suggested that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun.

Copernicus

During the Dark Ages in Europe, the scientific work of the ancient Greeks was preserved and further developed primarily by scholars in

Baghdad.

Why did Ptolemy have the planets orbiting Earth on “circles upon circles” in his model of the universe?

to explain the fact that planets sometimes appear to move westward, rather than eastward, relative to the stars in our sky

When did Ptolemy live?

about 2000 years ago

True or False?A model can be used to explain and predict real phenomena.

True

How did Eratosthenes estimate the size of Earth in 240 B.C.?

by comparing the maximum altitude of the Sun in two cities at different latitudes

People of central Africa predicted the weather by

observing the orientation of the crescent moon relative to the horizon

Historians trace the origins of a 24-hour day to

the ancient Egyptians.

At the Sun Dagger in New Mexico, a dagger-shaped beam of sunlight pierces a spiral

at noon on the summer solstice.

The Metonic cycle is the

19-year period over which the lunar phases occur on about the same dates.

The path that led to modern science emerged from ancient civilizations in which part of the world?

the Mediterranean and the Middle East

When and where did the Library of Alexandria exist?

from 300 B.C. to A.D. 400 in Egypt

The Jewish calendar is kept roughly synchronized with a solar calendar by

adding a thirteenth lunar month to 7 out of every 19 years.

The Muslim fast of Ramadan occurs

during the ninth month of a 12-month lunar cycle.

One of the “nails in the coffin” for the Earth-centered universe was

Galileo’s observations of the moons of Jupiter.

-a planet’s period does not depend on the eccentricity of its orbit.
-all orbits with the same semimajor axis have the same period.
-planets that are farther from the Sun move at slower average speeds than nearer planets.
-the period of a planet does not depend on its mass.

Kepler’s third law, p^2 = a^3

When we see Venus in its full phase, what phase would Earth be in as seen by a hypothetical Venetian?

full

From Kepler’s third law, a hypothetical planet that is twice as far from the Sun as Earth should have a period of

more than 2 Earth years.

From Kepler’s third law, an asteroid with an orbital period of 8 years lies at an average distance from the Sun equal to

4 astronomical units.

The Earth is instantly replaced in its orbit by a speck of dust. Which statement best describes the subsequent orbital motion of that piece of dust?

The dust particle will continue in the same orbit as the Earth did, orbiting the Sun in 1 year.

Kepler’s second law, which states that as a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times, means that

a planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun and slower when it is farther from the Sun.

The point along a planet’s orbit where it is closest to the Sun is called the orbit’s

perihelion.

The principle of Occam’s Razor states that

in explaining natural phenomena, the simplest explanation consistent with the observations is to be preferred.

What is meant by a scientific paradigm?

a generally well-established scientific theory or set of theories

True or False?A theory cannot be taken seriously by scientists if it contradicts other theories developed by scientists over the past several hundred years.

False.

The ancient goal of astrology was to

predict human events.

When did humans first learn that Earth is not the center of the universe?

within the past 500 years

Which of the following is the reason for the solar day being longer than a sidereal day?

the combined effect of the rotation of Earth and its orbit about the Sun

In the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, Venus should exhibit which of the following phases?